DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

The U.S. isn't creating vassal states because that wouldn't fly with the current zeitgeist, because it'd allienate the EU and other current friendly countries which buy a lot of crap from US companies. Keeping the USD as the base currency of the world is the most important thing. When the a country owns the de-facto base currency it can print it's way into prosperity, having the most powerful army assures that everyone will respect that the pieces of paper you print are worth something.

This way you can get yourself out of trouble any time it arrises by printing your way out of it. Inflation then comes and your debts are now easier to repay. Meanwhile all the schmuck countries holding your debt can't do much about it, since you're the only one that can print USD.

Keeping those countries close and doing trade is way better than a few extra official vassal states, when you can instead just get most of the profits without any of the hassle of actually having to manage a remote piece of land. Why have all that trouble when you can sell your current_gen-2 weapon systems to most countries on earth with loads of profit? Plus they can't ever go to war against you because you'll just stop supplying them.

I'm very pro-US myself but to think that this "benevolent world management" stance is just out of the kindness of the US government's heart seems a bit naive. It's subtle empire building, but it's still empire building. I for one don't mind, because I think out of the options there are, the US definitely isn't the worse choice.

I wonder what's the story behind BioNTech/Pfizer

They created equivalent vaccine.

I see that BioNTech was founded in 2008. Moderna was founded in 2010.

I guess that like many advances, mRNA was (and still is) a new, promising technology that prompted people to found companies to bring it to the market. Moderna, as an American company, probably simply went to see DARPA when they were looking for funding because of the potential of the technology.

Yes, the US can still take a lot of credit.

Just because the Soviets didn't officially screw up and get everyone killed (thanks to Stanislav Petrov), that does not detract from the stabilizing effect the US as a superpower has had overall (yes, local wars like Iraq have caused local instability) in preventing massive wars between global powers that would inevitably kill tens of millions of people.

The US superpower also constantly discourages smaller regional wars and spiral conflicts, because the parties involved have to play the risk that the US takes the opposite side and picks winners. If you're North Korea and you invade South Korea, you know you're going to war with the US. If you're Russia and you invade Lithuania, Poland or Romania, you're going to war with the US. If you're Iran and you declare war on Israel, you're going to war with the US. If you're Venezuela and you have a tense political conflict with Colombia, and you invade, now you're going to war with the US (directly or indirectly).

The US umbrella shields nearly every democratic nation in the world, including all the young democracies in Eastern Europe (some need that shield a lot less than others). And this is where the Reddit-knowledge reactionary cynic jumps in and mentions the coup against Iran and how they were a democracy, and somehow that magically undermines everything else I said (they were not a democracy, that's factually false, their leadership was authoritarian and appointed, not elected; they were no more a democracy than modern Iran is; although the US should not have involved itself with Iran regardless).

China routinely lobs military threats at Australia now, recently telling them that the Australian military will be the first to be targeted if they get involved in any conflict related to Taiwan. Australia knows that if a military conflict ever breaks out with China (including over trade), the US will be on its side. It's that simple. It keeps a lot of bad behavior in check (which, again, simultaneously does not excuse any bad behavior by the US; I shouldn't have to spend so much time including statements like that, but so many people fail at basic logic).

There are positives and negatives to the US and what it does with its superpower position (people only like to mention the negatives, naturally), one of the positives has been substantial overall global stability in the post WW2 era versus all of the recorded history that came before.

Well that 25M really paid off. Huge.